Cold mountain rain hammered the black tiles of the Dragon-Tiger Pavilion.
Torrents of gray water cascaded from the curved roof edges. It splashed against the polished white marble terrace of the Upper Citadel.
Below the terrace, the grand courtyard lay strewn with eighty fallen inner students, their bronze shields dented and their poisoned throwing darts trampled into the mud.
Steam rose in thick, steady plumes from Lu Chen’s shoulders and collarbone.
The sixty-degree baseline heat humming through his marrow flashed the raindrops into vapor the instant they touched his skin.
Across the terrace, twenty paces away, Grandmaster Yu stood motionless.
The eighty-year-old martial patriarch was clad in dark purple silk stitched with coiled river vipers, the hem soaked with gutter water.
In his right hand, he held a six-foot staff carved from the stone-hard spine of an underground dragon-beast.
